ABSOLUTELY agree!
Jim
On 12/5/2020 7:29 PM, Zach Metzinger via AMSAT-BB wrote:
On 12/05/20 16:23, Chris Thompson via AMSAT-BB wrote:
I also wanted one until I realized it did not support this. As Alan says, it is not really about packet. A modern radio with an SDR at its heart should support wideband digital signals. It should ideally be as wide as the IF in both directions.
Chris,
Indeed. Raw access to the digital IF, bidirectionally, would be ideal.
*Soapbox warning*
This example serves to highlight the reality of software-defined radios where corporations, not amateurs, are writing the code within the CPU/DSP.
Used to be, if you wanted your rig to do something (with the RF/AF path anyway), you could apply a soldering iron at the proper location and make it so. Not so much with SDR (DSP) rigs, which have much of that path in the software realm.
The same thing is happening in many aspects of our lives: there is less "hackability", in the true hardware hacker sense of the word, as corporations realize that they need us to buy next year's model to get the 1% functionality that wasn't in what we have now and have no way to add it ourselves.
It makes me less inclined to buy a shiny new box to do radio. I'd rather build my own equipment that I can then modify, experiment, and share with others.
*Off the soapbox*
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